1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for ultrasonically scanning an object with an ultrasonic head having a plurality of transducer elements disposed side-by-side, wherein different numbers of the transducer elements are successively activated for reception along a straight scan line for receiving echos from different depth regions.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Parallel scanners are traditionally utilized for ultrasonically scanning an examination subject. In such devices, the ultrasonic head has a plurality of ultrasound transducer elements disposed in parallel side-by-side, which are scanned individually or in groups during transmission and during reception. During reception along a scan line, operation can be utilized as described in German OS No. 26 43 918. Electronic focusing is undertaken by activating an increasing number of ultrasonic transducer elements for increasing the scan depth in the examination subject. The so-called aperture by this scanning method, however, is relatively small because only a single element or group of elements from the total number of ultrasonic transducer elements is utilized. The theoretically available maximum transverse resolution based on the applicable physics cannot be achieved.